What doesn't kill you
by Grasspaw
Summary: still hurts, leaves scars, never really leaves, affects others, cripples, makes you an outcast, breaks you, haunts you, gives you experience, makes you want it to stop, teaches you to fight back, and might just make you stronger. Tahno, Korra, and moving on.


**Yeah, my first story in however long. I don't know why, but I've been on a big Tahno kick the past few days, and I just banged this out real quick. I'm not really entirely sure what it is, but I like it okay. Anyhow, let me know what you think, yes I'm sorry for not updating, and no I probably won't be posting anything else for a while. Life is insane. Rated for mentions of past abuse. I own nothing.**

_What doesn't kill you..._

_...still hurts._

His dad screamed at him, and Tahno cowered. One day, he promised himself. One day he would make it big, and he would have so much money he could afford to leave this hellhole, and he would take his mother with him and keep her safe. For now, he just wanted it to stop.

_...leaves scars._

"What are these?" the girl - he was pretty sure her name started with an L, or maybe an R - asked, tracing the faint marks on his arms. He thought of pain and hatred and _why does he always hurt us_ and told her breezily that it was a training accident years ago.

_...changes you._

He could pinpoint the exact day he became hard and emotionless, because it was the same day his father threw him against the wall and he blacked out. He woke up in a hospital and was told that the man was in prison and his mother was in a morgue, and he would be moving to Republic City to stay with his grandmother. He told them he didn't care.

_...never really leaves._

His two teammates always fist-bumped at the end of matches. He pretended he was too cool to do so, but really he was just too afraid of the thought of someone swinging a fist at him.

_...affects others._

His teammates had learned never to touch him unexpectedly, be it a joking shove or a friendly arm around the shoulders, because he would tense up and sometimes shut down. After a while, Shaozu and Ming stopped touching each other, as well. The three of them orbited around each other, never closer than a brush of fingers as they passed a bottle back and forth.

_...cripples._

Amon had him down on his knees, and Tahno couldn't even begin to fight back because it was too much like his childhood and Amon was his father and he had been drinking and _no no no no no please don't hurt me not my fault PLEASE_. Now he's without his bending and he's experienced powerless again for the first time in years, and he thinks he might hate his father even more than Amon.

_...makes you an outcast._

He discovered that he really was the only person in Republic City - probably the world, actually - who had been abused, famous, and forgotten in the space of ten years. Support groups were for sissies, anyways. He could fix himself.

_...breaks you._

The Avatar found him drunk in an alleyway behind a bar, screaming curses at the night air and beating his fists on the wall. She waited until he had stopped screaming and started sobbing, then brought him to the island and let him sleep in her bed. She said she wasn't tired and that she wanted to read anyways; he didn't believe her, but he still slept.

_...haunts you._

He woke up screaming two nights later, curling in on himself and trying to banish the images of blood and water that never really left his mind. Korra held him as he cried and listened as he stumbled over himself trying to explain. She rocked him back to sleep, and he woke up to find her asleep on the floor next to the bed.

_...gives you experience._

He was meandering down the street - his first time back in the city after almost two weeks; he'd snuck out on the ferry that morning - when he saw her. He walked up to a seemingly random woman and said, "Look, I don't know who it is, but they're not worth and you should just leave." She stared at him and asked how he knew, and he just said that like recognizes like.

_...makes you want it to stop._

That brief encounter energized him; he went back to the island, and Korra was angry at him for leaving, but she shut up when he started talking. "I want to help people who are getting hurt." She asked where he wanted to start.

_...teaches you to fight back._

He burst into the room; Lin wanted him to wait for backup, but he could hear a woman screaming and a child crying and he didn't care to follow orders anymore. Help arrived ten minutes later to find the man unconscious on the floor, and Tahno helping to wrap a six-year-old's arm while blood dripped freely from his split lip. His eyes were blazing, and Korra hugged him.

_...might just make you stronger._

Korra told him when she first found him in that alley that she wasn't going to give him his bending back until he was 'clean.' Four months later, when she offered it to him, he said no. He didn't think he really needed it anymore.


End file.
